Barbara, kneeling there, fed the mouse with crumbs, and ate some mouthfuls of the bread herself. For there was nothing for her to do at Thorn but to watch for this friend at dusk, or for the white pigeons that sometimes flew up to her window during the day. She could see nothing of the world, not even the waving woods, but only the clouds moving and a few stars at night. One book they had given her, and that an old Bible bound in faded red leather. She had read it twice from cover to cover, sometimes with listlessness, sometimes with fierce hunger, sometimes with tears. And for an hour or more she would sit on the bed and think, her white face thin and questioning, but with no madness in her eyes.
XXIV
There was a shadow of unrest over England that year, as though each man distrusted his neighbor, and was ready to accuse his own friend of treason and papish practices, of taking the French King’s money, or of complicity in some wild and improbable plot. There had been no rush of the mob as yet, no Protestant fury, but the discontent and the fear and the distrust were there, spread on either side by vague whisperings and all manner of monstrous rumors. Men were seen to sit cheek by jowl in the taverns, and talk of an armed landing, of a second Massacre of St. Bartholomew, when all good Protestants were to be murdered in their beds. There were tales of Jesuits swarming over the country-side like silent, night-flying moths. The Catholic lords had long been arming, so it was said, and were ready even to murder his Majesty the King, and set up the Duke of York, that morose-faced inquisitor, in his stead.
John Gore, who had suspected his father of being trammelled up in some secret undertaking, had called on my Lady Purcell one gray afternoon, and was walking home alone across the park, taking a circuit so as to pass by Rosamond’s Pool. He had been often of late to the house in Pall Mall, drawn thither by instincts that he could not smother. He went to hear news, and more than once he had spoken to Anne Purcell of her daughter; but my lady had set her mouth very firmly, and made him believe that the affair was too poignant for her. He had even questioned Mrs. Jael quietly, and the woman had drawn two gold pieces from him with her emotional loquacity and the trickle of tears down her plump cheeks.
My lord had advised patience, and John Gore had done his best to abide by the advice, suspecting no treachery in it, and hoping for all that God might give. Yet often he rebelled against his blindness, yearning but to know the place where they had hidden her away. The truth might have been had by bribery, but John Gore had no reason as yet to persuade him to bribe his father’s servants, nor would he have stooped to such a thing without great need. Yet the girl had vanished out of the world, and there was no horizon toward which he might turn his eyes and know that she was there, like a light beyond the hills. In his heart he kept her image bright, even as she had appeared to him those summer days, swarthy and sorrowful, with silent lips and watchful eyes.
Dusk was falling as John Gore crossed the park, and there were few people strolling along the paths. He had come close to Rosamond’s Pool when he saw two figures leaning over the rail, with the collars of their cloaks turned up and their hats down over their eyes. They turned from the water as John Gore came by, and even in the dusk he recognized the taller of the two as Stephen Gore, his father.
The son stopped, and saw his father give a tug to the shorter man’s cloak.
“Well met, Jack; you are the man I want. This, Captain Grylls, is that son of mine who has sailed a ship farther than any of your sea-going bravoes.”
My lord’s companion bowed and lifted his hat. He was pock-marked and somewhat overdressed, with a hook nose and a sharp, dry mouth. One of his shoulders appeared higher than the other, and his head set a little askew upon his neck.
“The great navigator! Proud to approach you, sir; we are mere duck-pond gentry, some of us, though we may have fought the Dutch.”